fencing in Amherst, MA

[Chris Nauroth]

Hello all,

Anyone here from the Amherst, MA area? I know I saw at least one guy whose name said something like "UMassSabre." I'll be moving to that area early next year when I get married. What can you tell me about competitions and clubs in the area?

Thanks!

[U.M.Amherst.Sabre95]

Well, there's a fair amount of fencing to be found in the five college area, with schools such as UMass-Amherst,Amherst College, Smith College, and Hampshire College maintaining active clubs.

UMass Fencing: http://www.umass.edu/rso/fencing

Smith College Fencing: http://sophia.smith.edu/hellsbelles

Amherst College Fencing: http://www.amherst.edu/~fencing

There's also the Northampton Fencing Center, which is a pretty easy drive from Amherst itself (and there's actually the PVTA which can take you there as well) You can find information at their website here: http://www.nohofencing.com

There's another Umass fencer who frequents these boards from time to time, and I'm sure he can provide more detailed information. If you have a car, there are also clubs/tournaments in the Hudson-Berkshire Division that arew further out in Western Massachusetts.

Cheers!

BTW: When you arrive in Amherst, you have to hit Antonio's. Best Pizza on earth.

[space_cadet]

No, but I know it's Exit 8 off the Mass Pike.

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Cadet à Space

[oiuyt]

Hi Chris-

I'm undoubtedly the other UMass fencer mentioned by Evan. Evan's basically summed up what's in the area. All of the local colleges have clubs, but for the most part you'd need to be a student at a school to join any of them. Then there's the Northampton Fencing Center (not to be confused with the Northampton Fencing Club which is affiliated with the local high school). Evan's given the URL in his post above.

Competition-wise the people around Amherst that are active need to travel around a bit. Most of the New England Division tournaments are near either Boston or Providence (1 1/2 - 2 hours from Amherst depending on location and driving speeds). Connecticut Division holds nearly all of its tournaments in Danbury (about 2 hours SW of Amherst, near the NY border). Hudson-Berkshire Division holds events currently about once a month in Dalton, MA (an hour West of Amherst, mostly foil tournaments) and Troy, NY (about 2 hours West of Amherst, near Albany, epee and sabre tournaments). There are occaisional other tournaments that don't fit these categories (CT div held a U event at Mount Holyoke college this past year, NE div always holds E events once/year in Northampton, H-B has epee and sabre events at the club in Dalton every several months).

Amherst isn't really near the centers of ANY of the divisions, but at least we have all of the events from THREE schedules taking place not too far from us. Of course I'll probably catch flack from people outside the Northeast who are used to 2+ hour drives just for "local" tournaments, but, hey, I guess we're just lucky (or 4+ hour drives that I've had friends have to make routinely in other parts of the country).

Were are you coming from? What weapon(s) do you fence? Why Amherst? Welcome (in advance) to the area.

-B

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